Mayor and Llewelyn Davies connections: a tangled web

This article consists of material left over from my recent post about convenient deaths associated with the Austen, Mayor and Disraeli families. While doing the research for that post, I came across some information, leads and connections that I wanted to follow up. I decided to stick to the main subjects and leave the extra material and further research for another time.

Mary Sheepshanks and her connections

Flora M. Mayor was a lifelong friend of the social reformer Mary Sheepshanks. Mary Sheepshanks knew Flora’s fiancé Ernest Shepherd; Flora at one time believed that Ernest preferred Mary. Mary actually had feelings for someone else:

“In 1905 Mary Sheepshanks fell in love with Theodore Llewelyn Davies. However, he was in love with Meg Booth, the daughter of social investigator, Charles Booth. After she refused him, Davies committed suicide. “

Suicide is only suspected: he drowned while bathing alone in a pool in the River Lune. It is thought that he hit his head on a rock. He was 34 years old at the time.

Theodore Llewelyn Davies was uncle to the five Llewelyn Davies brothers, one of whom also drowned in a suspected suicide pact.

Disraelis and Mayors: more convenient deaths

I have written elsewhere about the convenient – and possibly suspicious - deaths of the men who were engaged to be married to Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra and J M Barrie’s sister Maggie.

In both cases, the bereaved young women remained available to their siblings as their main source of companionship, emotional support and admiration. In other words, both Jane Austen and J. M. Barrie benefitted from the deaths of the men who would have been their brothers-in-law.

I have found two more cases of interest, with similar elements.

Alice Mayor and F. M. Mayor

Flora Macdonald Mayor wrote novels and short stories under the name F. M. Mayor, mostly between 1913 and 1929. She had an identical twin sister, Alice. Just like Jane Austen, Flora had brothers but only the one sister.

Flora spent some time at university, where she did not do particularly well. She spent the next seven years looking for an occupation. She hoped to succeed as a professional actress, but that too did not turn out very well. The life was hard, the glamour faded, and she became tired of the lifestyle and the squalid lodgings.

People in such situations often dream of deliverance. Salvation came in the form of a young architect called Ernest Shepherd, who, just like Cassandra Austen’s fiancé, could not afford to get married immediately so hoped to make his fortune overseas. 

He was accepted for a well-paid job in India, and this enabled him to propose to Flora. He then left for India. Although she was not happy at the prospect of being separated from her family, Flora agreed to join him later in the year: they would then get married.  Unfortunately, he died of typhoid fever out there while she was still in England.

Alice MacDonald Mayor had not been in favour of the marriage. She was desolate at the thought of losing her twin to India. Just like the Austen sisters, the two Mayor girls lived closely together for their remaining years. Flora died at the age of 59; Alice lived on for another 29 years.

The little smile and the gleam in the eye: another sinister scenario

There is an unpleasant phenomenon that occurs in some people’s lives. Unlike other unseen influences, energy vampirism for example, there is not much information available about it. Finding a new example recently was the inspiration for this article.

Stella Gibbons and the little smile
I first became aware of this phenomenon as something that happens in other people’s lives when I was reading about Stella Gibbons’s turbulent early life. 

Her father was domineering, violent and melodramatic:

“In one memorable incident when she was 11, her melancholic father threatened suicide and her mother begged Stella to intervene. Even at that age, she recognized that her father was secretly enjoying the agony he was inflicting on his family, and this pretense and emotional cruelty left a deep impression.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20160731173154/http://planetpeschel.com/2009/09/stella-gibbons-kills-a-genre-1932/

The little smile is mentioned in Out of the Woodshed: A Life of Stella Gibbons by Reggie Oliver:

“As the ranting went on Stella noticed that Telford had a slight smile on his face and was deriving a secret pleasure from the scene, much as an actor might do from tearing a passion to tatters. She was appalled. To suffer from a fit of despair was one thing; but actually enjoying causing a scene was quite another.” 

This incident speaks for itself; it has been described as a turning point in Stella’s life. Reading about it was a turning point for me: I remembered seeing a few secret little smiles myself, and realised that I was not alone in having such experiences. 

Hebden Bridge and Parliament: a strange suggestion

The Houses of Parliament are reported to be slowly turning into an uninhabitable ruin; an option under consideration is moving MPs and peers out for five years.

A news article about a possible move sees it as something positive:

“…with both MPs and peers in Parliament and the Queen in Buckingham Palace facing the possibility of decamping while renovations are made to their historic homes, is it now the time for power to shift in the UK?”

LSE Professor Tony Travers makes a bizarre suggestion:

“…perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to move power out of London. There are compelling arguments to decentralise the UK by moving Parliament...why don’t we move it to...” he trails off, reaching for Google Maps “... now, where’s sort of in-the-middle? Hebden Bridge! We could put it there.”

Hebden Bridge is just about in the middle of the British Isles, although it is not one of the official geographical centres and is considered to be far up north to people who live in the south of England. Even so, it is a very strange place to select almost at random from a map when there are other, better known places in the area, big cities such as Leeds or Manchester for example. 

Professor Travers may have been joking about moving Parliament to such a small market town, but Hebden Bridge has associations and connections that make a place of interest for several other reasons. 

There are some coincidences involving Parliament too.

Recent small synchronicities

I have a few more curious coincidences to report. 

Best one first:

I came across a hard-line sect called the Exclusive Brethren one day while doing some research for a client. I had heard of the very similar Plymouth Brethren but not these people. I spent some time reading up on them. 

I decided to take a break from work and have a look at a consumer forum that I am a member of. 

Someone had just started a new thread – about the Exclusive Brethren! 

I searched for other references to the EB on the site, but although the forum has more than 10 million signed-up members and huge numbers of posts and has been running since 2003 this was the very first time these Brethren had been mentioned. 

The synchronicity here is scary.

I arranged to meet someone at an outside event.

I had recently bought two boxes of very good quality flavoured teas, and as a present I took three bags of each for her to try. When we met, she pulled out a present for me: two boxes of the same brand of teas, although different flavours from the ones I had brought for her. This would not be worth mentioning, except that the - unusual - name of one of flavours was the same as that of a charity that I was researching for a client. 

As we were coming away, a young, Middle Eastern looking man coming into the park asked us where the main events were being held. His looks immediately reminded me of an unusual poet whose works this friend had recently introduced me to: Yahya Hassan, a controversial young Danish poet and politician of Palestinian descent. I had never heard of him before she told me that she was reading his poems. I had been thinking about him a lot, then someone who looked very like him, only even better looking, approached us! 

Speaking about energy vampires: some good results

This may just be coincidence, but the person responsible for the recent attack whose effects I described in this article has just left the neighbourhood. 

A move has been on the cards for around five years now: she has been stalling people and stringing them along. Suddenly it all came to a head, and now she is gone.

I am now wondering whether my identification of the source and cause of the familiar symptoms I experienced had anything to do with her sudden departure. Are there unwritten rules about this? Had I blown her cover?

I always felt worse after encountering her as she was hostile and unpleasant - I had been avoiding her for many years because of this - but I did not use the words ‘energy vampire’ to myself until after the recent attack. I used the recovery time to join some dots.

One of the worst aspects of feeling as bad as I did is that knowing that the feelings are just nightmarish symptoms that will soon fade away makes no difference at all. Knowing from experience that energy and inclination will return and that I will once again feel alive and able to enjoy things does not help. 

This lack of inspiration and optimism is actually one of the worst symptoms. 

Another connection I made is that I sometimes feel even better after an attack than I did before it. Could this be some kind of reward for not giving in? Is it a consequence of making connections?

It is not long since even making a cup of tea seemed a bit too much like hard work, but in the last few days I have been easily and happily coping with new and demanding tasks. I have also been approached by a potential new client. 

Is all this, good and bad, just a coincidence?

Two more small synchronicities

The tiny coincidences continue.

I was reading a thread on a consumer forum where people were discussing an episode of Dragons’ Den in which a would-be businessman was applying for funding for a parking scheme that he had devised to extort money from people. 

A poster said, “Not watched it but I can imagine it's a horse face looking ‘entrepreneur’ looking to milk that cow, the motorist. I hope he didn't get a penny.”

At that exact moment, an advertisement for an asset management company came on the radio, and I heard someone use the expression ‘carthorse to cash cow’.

I was watching a film on TV called The Eagle, a drama set in Roman Britain; I started reading forum posts when it got too gruesome for me. I heard someone say, “Get your thumbs up” (during a gladiatorial fight scene) just as I was reading the words ‘thumbs up’.

I can’t see anything significant in these expressions, but they are good examples of very minor synchronicities.